Re: Reinstalling Packages after Rebuilding System with Etch

[Andrew Reid <reidac@bellatlantic.net>]

On Monday 24 November 2008 15:05, Martin McCormick wrote:
> 	I am going to backup my sarge system, install with the
> etch-and-a-half CDROM and then I want to put back all the extra
> packages such as alsa, calc and many more that I have installed
> over time but, of course, do this as automatically as practical
> as well as get the etch versions of everything.
>
> 	The plan is to do dpkg -l on the existing system to list
> everything that is installed and then use dpkg to go get
> comparable packages to replace what was there before.
>
> A. Will this work?
>
> B. Is there a better text-based way?

  I have done this using 
> dpkg --get-selections >file

  ... on the original machine, to record the package state, and 
then using the sequence:

> dpkg --clear-selections
> dpkg --set-selections < file
> apt-get dselect-upgrade

  This particular sequence will identically clone the package
state of the system -- you probably don't want that, since that
would remove your hard-won new kernel, so you might want to skip
the clear-selections step, and/or you may want to edit the 
file.

  I think in either case, installing already-installed packages
is harmless. 

					-- A.
-- 
Andrew Reid / reidac@bellatlantic.net